The challenge, of course, is coming up with a good, accurate list that represents a variety of genres within the world of Christian thought. Here are my criteria for making the list:
- With the exception of Heschel (because Judaism is close enough), the thinker must write specifically about Christian theology or philosophy. There are plenty of great Christian thinkers out there in the fields of psychology or physics or genetics or archaeology or English or a million others. I don't really care about those fields and don't have much desire to read about them within the context of this project. I also don't want a bunch of pastoral and Christian self-help stuff either. I want great works of theology here.
- The thinker must be extraordinarily influential within his or her field. In some sense, the contours of Christian thought need to have changed as a result of whoever makes this list. Someone may have been brilliant and perhaps hugely influential to me or you as individuals, but that's not enough to make the list. They must have been influential on a very broad scale within their fields.
Initially I wanted to make this a list of exclusively orthodox Christian thinkers, but I've changed my mind. There are certain gigantic figures that simply, if left off the list, would have made it deficient. Those of you familiar with theology will notice that my list is probably unreasonably heavy on the mid-late 20th century. This is largely because of three reasons. First, there was just more Christian scholarship in the back half of the 20th century. Second, I'm young, and am thus more influenced by and familiar with late 20th century thinkers. Third, I include more Christian philosophers than most people would in a list of Christian theologians. Distinctively Christian philosophy didn't really take off (again) until the late 60s and early 70s, so obviously the philosophy additions to the list will tend to be more from the later parts of the century.
Ok, so here is my 50. This is my first edition of the list and it is subject to change. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to rank them in the final version. The reason I'm posting this on my blog is that I'd love some help. I'm sure that I'll forget some extremely important people, so if you can think of someone who needs to be on the list, please let me know.
| Again, this is a very preliminary list. Pretty much just the ones that came to mind. I'd really appreciate some help from some of you out there who are fellow lovers of theology. I'd be happy to change a few of these if I have a good alternative, but obviously a few are quite immovable. |
On a related note: if Vegas were to put odds on my completing this task on time, what would they be? As of right now (and not including the rest of today in my total), I'd have to finish one book every 9.88 days. Crap. This isn't going to happen. Ok - 25 by the end of 2014 and 50 by the end of 2015. That gives me 17.18 days per book. Much more realistic. The good news is that I have already read a number of these authors, so that makes it much more realistic.
Here are some areas in which I recognize this list is probably deficient: Old Testament theology, narrative theology, feminist theology (and female theologians in general - Marilyn McCord Adams narrowly missed the list in favor of some more classic theologians). There may be others. Please help! I'd like as high-quality a list as possible as I embark on this theological journey than which none greater can be conceived.
*Karl Rahner replaced Alister McGrath - thanks to Derek Pierson for catching this startling omission.
**D.A. Carson replaced William P. Alston - again, Derek Pierson reminded me - I planned on putting Carson on, then he just slipped my mind when I actually created the list.
***Charles Hartshorne replaced Meredith Kline - O.T. studies is already well-represented between Brueggemann, Von Rad, and Heschel, and there aren't any other process theologians on here. Again, thanks be to Derek for the suggestion.
*Karl Rahner replaced Alister McGrath - thanks to Derek Pierson for catching this startling omission.
**D.A. Carson replaced William P. Alston - again, Derek Pierson reminded me - I planned on putting Carson on, then he just slipped my mind when I actually created the list.
***Charles Hartshorne replaced Meredith Kline - O.T. studies is already well-represented between Brueggemann, Von Rad, and Heschel, and there aren't any other process theologians on here. Again, thanks be to Derek for the suggestion.
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